Markus already wrote two articles about controlling the NEX-5 with a wireless remote control. The first article presented the code and the schematics. In the second article he wrote about the final ‘product’, a boxed version of his Arduino.
Inspired by his design I tried to reduce the size. Therefore I didn’t implement the infrared receiver part and I also used a Arduino Nano instead of a regular Arduino. And I also used a smaller radio receiver. I finally had these components.
The next image shows a detailed view of the guts inside the box. With all the connecting cables and the two circuit boards there is not much space left.
The next images are showing the final setup. The trigger is attached to the camera. The controler box is connected to the trigger. The radio transmitter is ready to fire.
The following image shows a detail of the mounted trigger on the Sony NEX-7. I used some florist wire to attach the circuit board to the connector of the hand strap. On the other side the circuit board is glued to an hotshoe adapter which connects to the hotshoe of the camera.
And finally some images of the complete panorama setup, including a custom made lens bracket (in fact it’s a simple pipe clamp from the hardware store), a Novoflex Alpha- to E-Mount adapter and a Sigma 8mm/4.0 fisheye. For panoramic photography this setup is used on top of a double-monopod construction.
The weigtht of the shown setup is 1145 g (2 lb 8 oz). My old setup (Sony Alpha 900 with shaved Sigma 10mm/2.8) has 1710 g (3 lb 12 oz). In both cases this includes camera, lens, adapter, bracket, trigger, controller box, batteries and memory card.
Both setups delivers equirectangulars with the same size (10.000 x 5.000) and with both setups I shoot 4 around and mostly no up and no down shot.
And here is the new setup in action.
Click here to view some panoramic images which were taken with this setup.
Your solution for NEX-7 and original NEX-5 is a good one, and I think preferable to the ‘brain surgery’ required to wire out the shutter switch on these models. But the NEX-5N is a different story, rather easy to wire out without disconnecting anything or exposing any critical parts. Perhaps you would share this link with people who want to remote a -5N:
http://tksharpless.net/gear/NEX-5N/hotwire.jpg
As an alternative to Sony’s stubbornly closed system, I am quite attracted by the Samsung NX210, which offers WiFi remote operation — and can shoot raw brackets.
Best regards, Tom